When Hamden, Connecticut, school superintendent David Shaw was picked up twice by the police for drunk driving, he pleaded guilty and was hit with a fine and had his license suspended. But when it became clear the press would report embarrassing details of the second arrest—he'd been picked up leaving a pornographic bookstore dressed in what appeared in a police photo to be women's clothing—he proceeded to flee the state "without his Prozac," as the Hartford Courant put it, and made himself unreachable for about two weeks in the midst of the school year.

When Shaw came back, he entered rehab and sued the board for trying to fire him, charging that they failed to treat his alcoholism as a disability. Two months later town officials settled, paying Shaw a reported $240,000. As the town's attorney explained, "Termination would have been difficult under the [Americans with Disabilities Act]."

†